von der Dunk, Frans --- "Legal aspects of satellite communications" [2015] ELECD 254; in von der Dunk, Frans (ed), "Handbook of Space Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2015) 456

Book Title: Handbook of Space Law

Editor(s): von der Dunk, Frans

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781781000359

Section: Chapter 8

Section Title: Legal aspects of satellite communications

Author(s): von der Dunk, Frans

Number of pages: 45

Abstract/Description:

Satellite communications represents the largest and most commercialized space sector by far. At the same time, in many respects it only forms a specific sector of telecommunications in general, happening to make use of satellites as part of relevant telecommunication networks. Following from this, also in terms of legal analysis satellite communications in many respects is subject implicitly or explicitly to much broader scoped telecommunication law regimes. Chapter 8, however, largely focuses on the specific analyses of satellite communications law as a sector in its own right, and then within that context further focuses on two regimes from the very start specifically targeting that sector. The starting point for any analysis here concerns the competences of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to coordinate internationally the allotment, allocation and assignment of satellite frequencies and attendant orbital slots/orbits, as following from the ITU Constitution, ITU Convention and Radio Regulations, and ensure the efficient use of satellite communications more broadly speaking. In addition, the UN Principles on Direct Television Broadcasting by Satellite, an important yet ultimate flawed and failed effort to address some general international public aspects of one branch of satellite communications, direct TV broadcasting by satellite, reflected the important global political elements involved in this global sector. Even from a somewhat narrower perspective of ‘satellite communications’ as a sector of space applications in its own right ignoring such usage of satellite communication frequencies for, for instance, remote sensing or TT & C (telemetry, tracking, and command), more regimes than those two would be involved, notably those of international trade in satellite services, the role of intergovernmental satellite organizations and the specific European satellite communications regime, but those will be addressed elsewhere in the appropriate chapters and only referenced in this chapter. As of today, satellite communications still represents the largest and most commercialized space sector with downstream terrestrial applications – by far. Traditionally, ‘(tele)communications’ would refer to two fundamentally different concepts from an operational perspective; though as both require the usage of radio waves (or in the alternative, not relevant obviously for satellite communications, cables and wires) the technical/operational boundary between the two is often blurred as a consequence of which they are not always readily perceived as being different in nature: two-way point-to-point communications (traditionally telephone, fax, telegraph, e-mail and suchlike) and one-way, point-to-multipoint communications (‘broadcasting’, encompassing at least radio and television) respectively. In particular the latter is subject in a number of respects to separate rules, which apply ‘on top of’ the more broadly applicable regimes to telecommunications largo sensu. Also, analysis should distinguish between satellite communications as the mere use of radio signals to communicate back and forth with any object in outer space – whether it concerns, for example, remote sensing satellites, deep space probes or manned spacecraft – and satellite communications as the use of specifically designed satellites as part of an infrastructure available for transmitting messages, whether two-way point-to-point or one-way point-to-multipoint.